Section 9
characteristic, and this characteristic is that of a corporate entity, a corporate body. It is very important that we realize this.
The loaf in the Lord's table points to some thing that comes after the Lord's death; it signi fies something that issues from the Lord in His resurrection. What is signified by the loaf is not something before the Lord's death, but some thing after His death and in His resurrection. Before His death, the Lord Jesus was a single, individual Lamb. But what issues out of His death in resurrection is a corporate entity. This entity is the loaf, the bread, which signifies a corporate body.
In the Gospel of Luke, of course, we do not see much development concerning the bread of the Lord's table. We need to remember, however, that Luke's impression of this came from Paul's revelation. Regarding the bread, we should go from Luke 22 to Paul's word in 1 Corinthians 10:17: "Seeing that we who are many are one bread, one Body; for we all partake of the one bread." Here we see that the bread signifies not only the physical body of the Savior; it also sig nifies His mystical Body, which is the church. This is not a matter of an individual; it is a matter of a corporate Body.